


All the Lonely People

by Balder12



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Post-Episode: s09e10 Road Trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 17:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1518971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balder12/pseuds/Balder12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gadreel and his vessel find some small measure of comfort in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Lonely People

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peas_fics](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=peas_fics).



> Written as a [Spring Fling](http://spnspringfling.livejournal.com/) gift to [peas_fics](http://peas-fics.livejournal.com/). Many thanks to [Reggie11](http://reggie11.livejournal.com/) for betaing!

Gadreel’s vessel is dreaming of his childhood home. The dream flickers at the back of Gadreel’s consciousness: the white of the clapboard, the brilliant green of leaves, the cool darkness of shade. The tiny two bedroom house the man lived in before his parents divorced is the last place he was truly happy.  
  
The man has a kind heart—Gadreel dwells within it, so he knows—but he’d shrunk away from the people who surrounded him. He’d longed for friendship but he could only imitate the rapid, subtle rhythms of human interaction convincingly for a short time before he grew overwhelmed and had to withdraw. He’d only felt truly comfortable when he was standing behind a bar.  
  
The man’s life had been a series of takeout dinners, paperback books, and television shows, brightened only by his dog, a Lab he’d been devoted to with the intensity of a love that had nowhere else to go. The only condition he’d insisted on when he’d said yes to Gadreel was that he be given enough time to leave her with one of the men from his Bible study.  
  
Gadreel had known few of these details the first time he possessed the man. He’d been in human bodies before his imprisonment, but the possessions then had been brief and driven by a singular purpose. No one in those days had ever said no—to keep an angel from performing his righteous duties was a sin, of course, and there had been no sin yet in the world. When he’d found this vessel after his fall he’d been in too much shock to take stock of its contents. He’d been dazed by sight of the sky after so long in a lightless prison, and he’d cursed the pitiful, shattered wings that kept him from rising up to meet it. He was in so much pain.  
  
Only two days after his fall, while he was still walking up and down the earth in confusion, searching for Abner in vain, he’d answered Dean Winchester’s prayer and left the man behind. Sam Winchester was a far more potent vessel, his soul an engine of spiritual energy that could power Gadreel’s healing. Gadreel has no love for trickery—Lucifer damned him with a pack of honeyed lies when he’d still been young enough to swallow them—but he couldn’t bear the thought he might die so soon after gaining his freedom. He had every intention of healing Sam as soon as he recovered enough to make the effort. Everyone would benefit.  
  
It was only after he was safely settled inside Sam, free from his most immediate threats, that it occurred to him that he had access to his vessel’s mind as well as his body. Gadreel had sorted curiously through Sam’s memories. They’d been windows onto the world that had taken shape while Gadreel was locked away in darkness. He’d studied Sam’s life as a guide to his own survival and rehearsed Sam’s mannerisms until he could mimic them to his satisfaction. When he tested his performance at the breakfast table or in the Impala he was pleased to find Dean detected no difference. Gadreel considers himself an excellent actor.  
  
He’d never spoken to Sam. When Sam controlled the vessel Gadreel was no more than stowaway, peering out through two windows. When Gadreel controlled the vessel he put Sam to sleep, the better to avoid conflict. Sam was a good man in his way, but dangerous. Gadreel knew from reviewing Sam’s thoughts that he’d revolt if he ever sensed he was possessed. Gadreel constantly struggled with the urge to defend his actions. All he wanted was a place to rest in safety for a few months while he healed. Sam of all people should understand what it’s like to be misjudged by your own kind, to be treated like a monster when you’re not. He’d felt like he was perpetually losing an argument with a man who didn’t know he existed.  
  
When Sam drove him out at last, he’d returned to his first vessel to find the man had prayed daily for his safe return. He hadn’t even brought his dog home, so devoutly did he hope he’d be called upon to serve again. Only one person had ever been happy to see Gadreel, and Abner had replaced him with a stolen family as soon as he no longer needed someone to nurse his wounds. But this man asked for nothing but the chance to help.  
  
And he does help, far more than Gadreel would have imagined possible. Even with the benefit of Sam’s memories the modern world is challenging to navigate, and Gadreel has come to rely on the man for advice on cars, paperwork, and digital devices. The man is grateful God has shown him his calling at last, and grateful too, perhaps, that he is no longer alone. They take comfort in each other’s company.  
  
Gadreel senses the man is unsettled by the killing they do together, but he explains the victims are fallen angels, and must die so Heaven can remain the home of the righteous. That story is an evasion—the moral complexities of the situation would only grieve the man—but it’s true in its essentials. When Gadreel restores his people to Heaven these few he’s killed will be forgotten. All will love him, and forgive him at last for the sin he committed so long ago.  
  
***  
  
Gadreel feels the brief flutter of confusion that always strikes his vessel when he wakes up to find his body already in use. The man relaxes when he sees they’re sitting at a bar. He feels safe in such places.  
  
 _Where are we?_  The man spends much of the day asleep, drained from the strain of carrying an angel. He misses most of Gadreel’s travels.  
  
 _Portland._  
  
 _Good beer in Portland._  Gadreel lets him pick the order. It tastes like molecules and decaying vegetation, but the man is pleased.  
  
Metatron appears on the next stool with the rustle of wings, the only angel in creation who can still fly. He slides over a sheet of paper.  
  
“I’m not an assassin,” Gadreel says. “Is this the best purpose you can find for me?” He’d never killed a sentient being until he struck down the prophet. There’d been no need before the Fall.  
  
“Eggs for the omelet, my boy.” Gadreel doesn’t know what that means, but he doesn’t like the tone.  
  
 _Smarmy,_  the man says. Gadreel isn’t sure if the man is just voicing an opinion or responding to Gadreel’s own thoughts on the matter. He needs to guard his mind more carefully.  
  
 _He’s the Lord’s chosen scribe. God sees not as man sees. It isn’t your place to question Him. Or mine._  
  
In truth, Gadreel is beginning to suspect Metatron has no intention of elevating him to the right hand of the throne. He wonders whether Metatron’s spell rendered him impervious to an angel blade. There’s more than one way to make himself a hero. But killing Metatron would lock his whole race out of Heaven, at least until they could find a back door. He’s not ready to take such a drastic step.  
  
“I will do this for you, but the next time we meet I expect my labor to begin bearing fruit.”  
  
“Orchards,” Metatron says. And then he’s gone.  
  
***  
  
The angels are all too easy to kill. None of the four recognized him when he walked into the church basement. They smiled and called him brother; they offered him love and safety with open arms. He’d thought of how their compassion would dry up and turn to ashes if they knew his name, and it made it easy for him to run them through. Four thrusts and they were extinguished, four fewer stumbling blocks on the path to Heaven.  
  
 _They didn’t seem dangerous,_  the man says, eyeing their bloody vessels uneasily.  
  
 _Even the devil may appear as an angel of light. Do not trust what ‘seems’ to be._  
  
There’s a sound at the basement door, the halting rhythm of footsteps. They fall unsteadily, intercut by a heavy weight dragging across the floor.  
  
When the angel appears in the doorway he thinks she must be young. She’s dragging her feet as if they’re lead weights too heavy to bend to her will. Her head lists to the side, and she holds her arms away from her like a tight rope walker. This is her first human body, and no one has taken the time or trouble to teach her to use it properly.  
  
She turns and stares at the bodies of her fallen companions, her head tilted in a parody of curiosity. Then she turns toward Gadreel, and he sees her true face. She’s old--so terribly, terribly old. When he’d first beheld Heaven’s light she’d already had long eons behind her. She’s a contemplative; she’s turned her eyes toward the ineffable wisdom of God since the dawn of time without rest or self-regard. She’s seen all there is to see, and yet she scarcely understands the meaning of the word ‘flesh.’  
  
 _What’s wrong with her?_  the man says.  _What is she?_  
  
The angel’s mouth works uselessly around the words she’s trying to form. The sound she produces is just a groan at first, tongue lolling, but it resolves into the word “traitor.” She falls to her knees and begins to speak. She tears every word out of her mind like it causes her physical pain.  
  
“I will not fight you. I will not allow you to pretend this is a right . . .” she pauses, half choking, as she struggles to shape the syllables, “righteous death.” She looks him in the eye. “Gadreel.”  
  
Gadreel separates her head from her shoulders with a single blow. She was older than the creatures that scuttle on the ocean floor. The knowledge that dies with her is irreplaceable. Gadreel bows his head and mourns the loss.  
  
 _Gadreel?_  says the man.  _You’re Gadreel?_  Gadreel realizes with a shock that the man knows him, the name ‘Gadreel’ familiar from his years of Bible study.  _You’re the one who tempted Eve in the Garden?_  
  
He feels the man’s rising sense of horror, the sudden claustrophobia of knowing he’s locked in his body with a stranger.  _I picked the wrong side? What have I done? What have I--”_  
  
Gadreel puts the man to sleep. He stands among the bodies and listens to the silence in his head. He could explain himself forever, but it would be like writing on water. The man will never understand. Gadreel has the power to grind the man’s soul down under his foot or to lock it in a dream so deep it would never break free. But then he’d be alone again.  
  
He nudges the edge of the man’s memory, pushing it back to just before they walked into the church basement. The man never has to remember the secret the old one revealed. When he wakes he’ll look at Gadreel and see only his friend. Gadreel closes his eyes and watches the images flicker: white clapboard, green leaves, cool shade.


End file.
